King County Jail

Seattle Councilmember Morales’s resignation raises red flag about Seattle’s institutions

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Seattle News:

Perhaps the biggest news this week is that Councilmember Tammy Morales is resigning from the Seattle City Council, effective January 6. She announced her resignation about a week after Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck was sworn into office, replacing Tanya Woo, who was appointed by the Council earlier this year. You can read about the resignation here, here, here, and here.

Former Councilmember Andrew Lewis had this to say over on Twitter: “The comparison with Pedersen [referenced in PubliCola’s article] is really illustrative. Alex had a different point of view from most of us, but there were still things we could work on together or amendments that improved a bill. The freezing out and hostility Tammy has faced is unprecedented and unacceptable. Or Licata, who served 18 years as the lone progressive. Despite his politics his colleagues respected him and he got a lot of good things passed on their merit (paid sick and safe leave for one). The curiosity that leads to good ideas breaking through is sorely lacking today.”

While we could all see other councilmembers bullying Morales on the dais live on the Seattle Channel, it sounds like this was the tip of the iceberg in terms of the poor treatment experienced by her and her staff. However, as bad as this is, perhaps even more troubling is the disenfranchisement of District 2 as a result of this behavior. It should not escape anyone that District 2 is the only Seattle district where people of color constitute the majority. Morales herself seems deeply aware of this, providing this list of actions the current Council has taken in the last year that have undermined her policy work and have been, in some cases, what could be considered anti-democratic:

  • “Interfered with the ability of our non-partisan Council Central Staff to provide objective policy analysis 
  • Suppressed the will of voters by offering an alternative ballot initiative that would effectively gut the Seattle social housing developer next February 
  • Stifled first amendment rights during public comment by arresting people 
  • Intimidated commenters by having a police presence when any controversial legislation is considered 
  • Witnessed a significant reduction of institutional knowledge through the departure of 3 Council Central policy staff, the entire Council communications team, members of our human resources and finance team, and several legislative aides 
  • Attempted to defund a critical program for addressing anti-displacement and supporting community economic development led by people of color 
  • Passed 11 separate bills to increase the punitive nature of our criminal legal system without any additional meaningful accountability for our police department 
  • And passed a budget that reduces funding for social services for our most vulnerable while dramatically increasing funding for jails, police, and sweeps”

The articles linked above include additional examples, and while this is not the purview of the Seattle City Council, a similar anti-democratic spirit has been shown by the City Attorney’s Office this year in their vendetta against sitting Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi. Meanwhile, the City has authorized a major expansion of surveillance technology, including automated license plate readers, CCTV cameras, and real time crime software. And next week the public safety committee intends to take up work on new less lethal weapon legislation that appears to functionally return the City to its pre-2020 status quo in terms of crowd control.

In a national environment in which many Democrats are raising the alarm about the health of our democracy, it’s worth reflecting on how we’re doing locally. And in Seattle, the answer appears to be that we could be doing better.  

You can read my article at The Urbanist about OPA Director Gino Betts resigning and Seattle’s troubled accountability system. A new director will be appointed by Mayor Bruce Harrell sometime next year.

One subject I touch upon in that article is the City’s 2025 legislative agenda and how it vastly reduces the number of agenda items relating to police accountability. Indeed, the agenda is significantly shorter and less coherent than its predecessor, as well as being significantly less progressive. The 2025 agenda was passed by Full Council on Tuesday with a few amendments.

Rinck walked on one amendment to state the City’s commitment to exploring progressive revenue options before considering other options for revenues that would put a higher tax burden on lower income and middle income households. She referenced the $10-12 billion state budget deficit over the next several years. Her amendment was successfully added, with Councilmembers Rinck, Cathy Moore, Morales, Rob Saka, and Dan Strauss voting yes, Councilmember Bob Kettle voting no, and Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, and Sara Nelson abstaining. 

Her second walk-on amendment adjusted a housing bullet point to add language to state the City’s commitment to increasing funding specifically to the Housing Trust Fund and other housing programs. It also passed. 

Attorney Rory O’Sullivan is the first candidate out of the gate to announce he’s running for Seattle City Attorney next year. More on this from me coming up.

The Seattle Police Department might soon move to be able to use drones as part of their surveillance apparatus. Hard Pressed reports that Seattle’s Information Technology department has determined such technology will need to go through a surveillance impact report process such as that conducted for the recently approved CCTV and real time crime software surveillance technologies. SPD has indicated they would like to use drones for “patrol units, arson and bomb squad, SWAT, harbor patrol, traffic collision investigation squad, CSI and to utilize drones as a first responder.” 

For more information, you can read a Wired investigation on a drone program currently being run in Chula Vista, California. 

King County News:

The Seattle Times recently ran an article entitled “Are King County’s homeless shelters full?” The answer appears to be a resounding yes.

“Either way, beds were consistently filled at prepandemic rates by late 2022 and by April 2024, were over 95% full — the highest in the last five years. “Generally, shelters are full, functionally full, and that’s been the case the entire time, nearly two decades, that I’ve been privy to the inner workings of this system,” said Alison Eisinger, executive director of Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness.”

They are full across the board regardless of type, although tiny home villages to tend to be even fuller. We also know that many people are turned away without a bed. And the article says that in 2023, the City of Seattle cleared almost 2,000 encampments as “obstructions,” sweeps which do not require the City to offer shelter.

King County launched their expanded mobile crisis team program at the beginning of the week, which dispatches teams of two to de-escalate mental health crises and provide connections to services. The expansion adds 10 teams, which gives the County a total of 27 teams, as well as having nine new customized vans. The teams will be dispatched through 988, run for the county by Crisis Connections. The dispatch is strictly voluntary, which means the caller has to agree to have the team come out. 

The family of Allen Duane McNutt, a man who died by suicide in the King County in Jail in 2022, is suing King County for $5 million. He was the fourth person to die by suicide that year in the jail, which is also being sued by the ACLU of Washington for not providing adequate medical care. 

Last week Executive Dow Constantine announced $11.75 million in participatory budgeting funds being allocated to various capital projects such as community centers, senior centers, and schools, as well as programming such as increased food bank funding, youth classes, and physical fitness programs. 

Recent Headlines:

Seattle Councilmember Morales’s resignation raises red flag about Seattle’s institutions Read More »

More jail beds for Seattle

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Seattle News:

Next week the Washington State Supreme Court will hold a hearing on public defender caseload standards. This is a case that could have wide-spread implications and is worth following. 

King County Office of Public Defense Director Anita Khandelwal announced her resignation this week. Her last day will be October 4. Matt Sanders will be replacing her on an interim basis; appointing a new director will probably take several months. 

The Seattle City Council went ahead and passed the SODA, SOAP, and prostitution loitering laws on Tuesday, after hours of public comment that was mostly against the new legislation. I wrote an article tying together the recent Supreme Court Grants Pass decision with Seattle’s attitude towards sweeps and these new laws.

The Stranger reported that “precinct data casts doubt on whether most voters who live in these areas support these policies. In half the zones, voters cast ballots against the current city council members in the 2023 election.” This could forecast potential electoral backlash against some current council members in 2027.

Earlier today, Seattle and King County announced they’ve come to a new agreement about the King County Jail. According to the press release, “the revised agreement updates rates that have been in place for many years, while allowing the City to use up to 135 jail beds and lift booking restrictions for misdemeanor crimes prioritized by the City of Seattle.” 

Seattle intends to spend $24 million on the King County Jail contract in 2025. The city’s recent contract for a SCORE jail pilot was not mentioned and is presumably proceeding as planned, adding another 20 or more beds of jail capacity for the city.

The council finally decided to add an alternative to I-137 funding social housing to the ballot in February, when the initiative will be decided during a special election. The alternative calls for the JumpStart tax to fund the PDA at $10 million a year for five years, thereby pitting affordable housing against social housing. Given that the Council’s suggestion would potentially rule out social housing’s mixed income model, it wouldn’t be creating true social housing in a way that would be likely to succeed.

This alternative may be vulnerable to a legal standard of what an appropriate alternative measure would be, however. Further, former City Attorney Pete Holmes says the actions thus far of the council could be seen as a “voter suppression tactic” in violation of the City Charter. This possibility could open up certain council members to a recall. 

Seattle Budget and Public Safety Meetings Next Week:

On Monday 9/23 at 9:30am the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development committee will have a special meeting to vote on new legislation that would make SPD hiring bonuses permanent. This legislation would also increase hiring bonuses for lateral hires (officers from other departments who already have experience) from $30,000 up to $50,000. New recruits would continue receiving a $7,500 hiring bonus. 

This proposal would cost about $1.5 million per year and come out of SPD’s budget, most likely from “salary savings.” 

As PubliCola reported, “There is little evidence to suggest that Seattle’s already generous one-time signing bonuses have increased police hiring (and substantial evidence to suggest that one-time bonuses are ineffective as a hiring and retention strategy).”

Public comment will be heard at the beginning of this meeting. 

On Tuesday, 9/24 at 9:30am the Public Safety committee will meet to vote on new surveillance technology being deployed by SPD, namely CCTV cameras and RTCC software. You can read more about this so-called Technology-Assisted Crime Prevention Pilot in my previous pieces on the subject here and here. 

One of the amendments planned for discussion would expand the area of the pilot focused on Aurora by several blocks, increasing the price tag on the proposed technology. Were the current amendments to be adopted, the cost would be $1.3 million for CCTV cameras and another $0.40 million for the new RTCC software, a number that has changed from the original budget attached to this project. We may learn more about the ongoing costs for this pilot program in the proposed budget next week. 

Councilmember Saka would also like a feasibility study on expanding the pilot to other areas including West Seattle.

It is noteworthy that the city’s Surveillance Advisory Working Group do NOT recommend implementing either of these technologies in a pilot program at this time. 

Public comment will be heard at the beginning of this meeting. 

On Tuesday, 9/24 at 2pm Mayor Bruce Harrell will present his proposed 2025-2026 budget.

On Wednesday, 9/25 at 9:30am Central Staff will be giving council an overview of the proposed budget. Unless things change, public comment will be heard at the beginning of this meeting.

Starting on Friday, 9/27 at 9:30am the council will begin hearing budgetary department presentations. As of now, public comment is also supposed to be heard at the beginning of this meeting, but this is subject to change. 

Recent Headlines:

 

More jail beds for Seattle Read More »

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students

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Seattle News:

Interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr announced she decided to fire Officer Daniel Auderer, who infamously laughed and mocked the death of student Jaahnavi Kandula last year. 

At this week’s public safety committee meeting, councilmembers unanimously voted to confirm Amy Smith as permanent Chief of the CARE department. Her confirmation will now move forward for a full vote from Council. 

Also at the meeting, Rahr gave a presentation about her first two months as interim police Chief, focusing on staffing, technology, accountability, and criminal justice partners. She mentioned SPD would need additional funds for their new proposed Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) software. She spoke of the need to differentiate between minor and major misconduct in the service of changing SPD’s culture because of how slow the OPA is to process cases. She also wants to make the officer entrance exam “much more low barrier and faster” and spoke about the department still being 400 officers down. 

I wrote more about Rahr’s decision to fire Dave and her remarks at the public safety committee meeting in an article for The Urbanist, coming out soon, so keep an eye open for that!

Following this presentation was a discussion led by City Attorney Ann Davison, Rahr, and Smith about the criminal justice ecosystem. As Publicola reported, “members of the Seattle City Council outdid each other calling for more police, more jail, and harsher punishments for people, like those who sell drugs, who “need to be contained,” as Councilmember Bob Kettle put it.”

There were also a few fact checks necessary for statements made by Rahr during her brief tenure. Axios reported that Rahr issued a directive this month explaining that a 2021 state law doesn’t prevent police from questioning juvenile witnesses after saying the law was impeding SPD’s investigation of the June 6 shooting at Garfield High School. PubliCola clarified that in spite of a statement by Rahr on Tuesday that “it takes multiple convictions of firearms laws before juveniles are held in detention and held accountable,” juveniles are in fact held in detention for firearms offenses, even without a conviction. Whether they are held in detention is at the discretion of the judges.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced some new public safety investments in his proposed mid-year supplemental budget, including an additional $800,000 for police recruitment marketing.

Harrell also announced the new SCORE jail pilot program that will allow Seattle to send a limited number of misdemeanor offenders to the Des Moines jail, which has an unusually high inmate death rate. The agreement would authorize Seattle’s use of at least 20 beds at the facility at a cost of between $1.5 million to $3 million. The legislation will need to be approved by the Council before being enacted.

Less than a week before this announcement, Department of Public Defense Director Anita Khandelwal withdrew from the stakeholdering process around this new pilot, saying it didn’t feel like anything she said in those meetings would have any impact on the decision-making process. Khandelwal raised several concerns about the city contracting with SCORE in this way.

A day after the SCORE pilot was announced, the news broke that the King County Jail is lifting some of its booking restrictions for people arrested in a specific geographical zone called the Downtown Activation Zone, which includes parts of downtown, the CID, and Belltown. It will accept bookings for some simple misdemeanors such as public drug use and possession. Thus far it doesn’t appear this change will impact Harrell’s decision to contract with SCORE, which could be used to book people who are arrested for misdemeanors outside of the designated zone. 

Tensions between the city of Seattle and King County continue to grow, with Executive Dow Constantine pushing back against Davison’s claim that the King County Jail booking restrictions are compromising public safety in Seattle, reported by The Seattle Times:

“In a message to Metropolitan King County Council members, sent on behalf of Constantine Wednesday, Penny Lipsou, director of council relations, said Davison’s claims are misguided. The jail makes exceptions to booking restrictions when there is a compelling reason, the message said, and Davison’s office has been ineffective at making those arguments in court.

“Rather than attacking the jail (and in past months, the judges), she should first get her own shop in order,” the message said.

The message goes on to invite Seattle to cancel its contract with the county for jail space.”

The invitation for Seattle to cancel the jail contract is particularly spicy, perhaps reflecting the growing frustration between the two municipalities. The message also mentions that the County is currently subsidizing misdemeanor bookings, meaning Seattle is already not paying their full cost.

Following up on last week’s news, Pierce County will not be charging SPD Deputy Police Chief Eric Barden in a domestic violence criminal case. Barden is still at least temporarily on Pierce County’s Brady list and currently being investigated by the OPA for allegedly asking a Pierce County deputy to lie on a police report.

Gun Violence Initiative:

King County recently kicked off their 100 Days of Action against gun violence, and Councilmember Girmay Zahilay introduced $1 million of funding in the county’s supplemental budget to assist in developing a comprehensive strategic plan for combating gun violence. I wrote about this over at The Urbanist, as well as giving an update on the $20 million allocated in Seattle’s budget process last year for student mental health. (Spoiler: Mayor Bruce Harrell only wants to invest half of it this year.)

Councilmember Tammy Morales pushed back on the plan to only spend half the allocated money on youth mental health, suggesting the council contract directly with schools and community organizations on programs that would help youth in the city thrive, including investing in free third spaces, skill building, jobs and apprenticeships. The council will have to decide whether to pursue this investment strategy when they vote on amendments to the supplemental budget in early August. 

King County News:

King County recently won a $450,000 federal grant to improve youth outcomes and expand alternatives for secure detention in King County. Next month, the King County Council will be considering legislation introduced by Councilmember Reagan Dunn that would declare their intention to keep the youth detention center open. Meanwhile, the youth jail is already understaffed, and the recent move to halt intakes at two of the major long-term state-run youth detention facilities is likely to add more pressure to the population of King County’s youth jail, which isn’t designed for longer-term stays.

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students Read More »

City Council Talks SPD Staffing While Ignoring Damning Report on the Department’s Treatment of Women

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Seattle News

My article on the three new surveillance technologies currently undergoing impact reports is up now at The Urbanist: Harrell Plans Hasty Rollout of Massive Surveillance Expansion. And here’s another great resource for learning more about these technologies.

I strongly encourage you to get involved in this conversation by doing one or more of the following:

  • You can sign on as a group or individual to this letter.
  • You can attend a public meeting that is part of the SIR process and give public comment on Tuesday, February 27, from 6-7pm at Bitter Lake Community Center (or remotely)
  • You can fill out survey forms for each of the three technologies. More possible talking points are here.

Last year SPD commissioned a report that describes the harassment and discrimination faced by their women officers. The report describes womens’ difficulties being promoted, discrimination about getting pregnant, sexist behaviors and comments, being excluded, and sexual harassment, among other issues. 14.4% of SPD sworn officers are women, down 1% since 2017. 

Publicola reported that in 2023, out of 61 new officers hired, just five were women, according to Jamie Housen. One of the talking points of the Executive’s Office seems to be that “almost half” of SPD’s command staff is women, but actually only 5 out of 13 are women, with only one being a sworn officer. The other 4 hold civilian positions that are typically held by women. 

In addition to last year’s lawsuit brought by Detective Cookie Boudine, another lawsuit was brought against SPD last month by Deanna Nollette alleging gender discrimination.

The Seattle Times reported: “Most of the report’s interviewees would not tell other women to join the department, James wrote.

“Well, if I were to tell my daughters or, you know, my friends, I tell them to run in the opposite direction, you know, because of the experiences that I’ve had,” one participant said.”

While SPD’s Chief Diaz mentioned wanting to specifically recruit more women at the year’s first Public Safety committee meeting this week, not one council member saw fit to ask him about this report. This lack of oversight fit nicely with the committee’s new attitude of bending over backwards to support SPD.

New Public Safety Chair Robert Kettle emphasized how the problems in Seattle stem from a “permissive environment” and named 6 pillars to address this: police staffing, legal tools, unsecured vacant buildings and lots, graffiti, public health, and “One Seattle engagement with the County and the State.” As Publicola points out, this is in stark contrast to the previous mission of this committee, which “previously highlighted police accountability, alternatives to arrest and jail, and “programs to reduce the public’s involvement with law enforcement and decrease involvement with the Criminal Legal System.”

In other words, it’s all about deterrence and punishment now, with strains of broken windows theory coming round yet again to haunt us.

CARE department head Amy Smith, who everyone called Chief, said that she’d like to expand the hours of the alternate responders. They now cover from 11am-11pm, and she’d like to cover the 11pm-2am window as well. She also mentioned that the responders sometimes have joint trainings with SPD officers.

SPD gave an update on 2023 crime numbers and staffing. In 2023, there was a 9% reduction in overall crime, a 10% reduction in property crime, and a 6% reduction in violent crime. There was a 1% decrease in total shots fired and shooting events, a 23% increase in homicides (although apparently some of these were delayed deaths, the Chief said), and a 3% increase in shooting events alone. The first month of 2024 saw a large reduction in homicides from previous Januaries. The number of rounds fired has increased recently due to high capacity magazines that hold many more rounds.

SPD lost 36 more officers than they were able to hire in 2023. This is a smaller decrease in staffing than any year since 2019, when they had a net gain of 16 officers. Over the last five years, they have lost 715 personnel. For January of this year, they are breaking even in terms of officers leaving vs officers being hired.

The average response time to a Priority 1 911 call is seven and a half minutes; their goal is seven minutes even.

He mentioned they want to close out the consent decree in 2024 and expressed pride that SPD would be one of the first departments to be able to do that. 

There was a lot of discussion of how to increase officer morale, make them feel more supported, increase staffing, and help them recover from the trauma they endured after George Floyd. There was also talk about how not having a new contract is harming SPD in terms of recruiting since officers aren’t being paid enough compared to other agencies. Chief Diaz mentioned doing a lot of recruiting from nearby military bases, citing Portland’s success in increasing staffing in this way. 

CM Moore said they were going to allow police to police and not engage in the micromanagement of the past. She complained that the city is paying for jail space it’s not getting, saying they are paying for 190 jail beds per night but only getting 40, which is a problem, as she wants to send a message of holding people accountable. She suggested the idea of the city looking elsewhere for jail space, which could mean another spotlight on the SCORE jail in Des Moines. As of October 2023, 4 people had died in the SCORE jail in 2023, a very high number.

Publicola ran an article about SPD and the City Attorney’s Office continuing to crack down on sex work:

“Criminalizing sex work is broadly unpopular; during jury selection, echoing national sentiment, 23 of 25 potential jurors said they didn’t think sex work should be illegal. But the city remains deeply invested in penalizing the practice—and pouring resources into prosecuting men who patronize sex workers.

Like James, most of the people prosecuted for patronizing prostitutes are men of color, and defense attorneys say many are immigrants—mostly Latino—who don’t speak English fluently or at all.”

The article also explores what a huge amount of resources these stings and trials take (a single sting can involve as many as 20 officers), and how in City law and SPD policy, sex work and human trafficking are practically the same thing. 

WA State Legislature:

A quick update here. HB 1579–the independent prosecutor bill–and SB 6009–a bill banning hog tying–both passed their houses of origin. Unfortunately, the traffic safety bill HB 1513 has died. HB 1445–the bill giving the Attorney General investigatory power over systemic practices of police agencies–is also dead. HB 2065–the bill about juvenile points–passed out of its house of origin and has a hearing and an executive session scheduled for next week. 

HB 1932 –the bill to allow even year elections–has passed from its house of origin.

Housekeeping:

I’m on vacation next week, so you’ll be hearing from me next in early March. 

Recent Headlines:

City Council Talks SPD Staffing While Ignoring Damning Report on the Department’s Treatment of Women Read More »

The Debate over ShotSpotter in Seattle Continues, While King County Takes Up Juvenile Solitary Confinement

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Seattle News:
Budget

A new op-ed critical of ShotSpotter being in Seattle’s 2024 budget was published this week. There will also be a webinar about ShotSpotter next Wednesday, November 8 at 5:30pm; it will live stream on YouTube and has a Facebook event page.

Speaking of ShotSpotter, at last Friday’s budget meeting, an amendment was proposed to cut $1.5 million from the Crime Prevention Pilot proposed in the Mayor’s budget (this would cut all funding associated with ShotSpotter and CCTV cameras, while leaving money for license plate readers) and instead use these funds to pay for behavioral health services at tiny home villages that have been partially defunded in the 2024 budget. These services allow tiny home villages to house folks with higher acuity needs than they’d otherwise be able to take. 

CM Herbold said she was disappointed that it didn’t appear any additional community engagement has happened over the use of ShotSpotter since last year. Apparently about a month after her request to Senior Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess for the studies he said existed to back up his claim that uniting the ShotSpotter technology with CCTV cameras improved its accuracy rate and its admissibility as evidence in court, he finally sent her some studies. Six of these studies only spoke to the potential benefits of CCTV cameras, with no mention at all of ShotSpotter acoustic gun detection technology. One final document sent was a suggestion found in a guide that one might pair the two technologies, but this didn’t include any study nor reference to a study.

CM Pedersen said we needed to fund ShotSpotter and CCTV cameras because of SPD’s low staffing levels. Perhaps he is not familiar with this study, which found: “Although the study is limited to one city, results indicate AGDS may be of little benefit to police agencies with a pre-existing high call volume. Our results indicate no reductions in serious violent crimes, yet AGDS increases demands on police resources.”

CM Nelson said, “I think there is probably evidence on both sides of the argument depending on which study you’re looking at.” She then failed to present a single study supporting the use of ShotSpotter. 

There was a marathon budget meeting to discuss all the councilmembers’ proposed amendments last Friday. Besides the one using ShotSpotter funding for behavioral health services for tiny home villages, here are some of particular note:

  • Two amendments add funding for domestic violence survivors, including one for mobile community-based survivor supports.
  • Two amendments add funding for inflationary adjustments and a 2% provider pay equity increase for ALL human services worker contracts (some of them were excluded from this in the initial proposal), although one of the sources of funding has raised some questions.
  • A State of Legislative Intent (SLI) requesting HSD and CSCC/CARE perform a gap analysis of the City’s current and priority investments in gun violence prevention as compared to the recommendations in the King County Regional Community Safety and Wellbeing (RCSWB) Plan, and identify complementary, duplicative, or gaps in services provided by the City and King County. 
  • Additional dollars for both the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) ($50k) and the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) ($222k)
  • A proviso asking SPD to resume their contract with Truleo, which provides technology to review body worn camera footage. There is a long storied history behind this one, but it seems worth mentioning ACLU WA has historically been against the use of this technology for privacy and civil rights reasons. 

CM Mosqueda also laid out her plan for discussing new progressive revenue options, as well as other budget-related legislation that isn’t required to balance the 2024 budget. Initial proposals will be discussed on Wednesday, November 15. There will be an additional budget committee meeting after the budget is passed by Full Council (theoretically on November 21) to discuss and vote on these progressive revenue proposals. That extra meeting will be on Thursday, November 30, and should any legislation pass that day, it will then move to a Full Council vote on Tuesday, December 5.

It is pressing for the Council to discuss new progressive revenue options due to the forthcoming budget deficit, which for 2025 currently sits at $251 million. Any new revenue that is passed by Council would need time to be implemented, so in order to have new revenue to fill that budget gap in 2025, legislation would need to be passed sooner rather than later.

New progressive revenue options you can expect to see include a proposal for a small city-wide capital gains tax and the potential repeal of an extant water fee/tax. Councilmember Sawant has proposed two amendments that would require small increases to the current JumpStart payroll tax; these amendments would fund mental health counselors for schools ($20 million) and pay increases for city workers ($40 million). CMs Herbold and Mosqueda co-sponsored both these amendments.

In addition, there has been some talk of a CEO pay ratio tax. This could be instituted as another layer of the JumpStart payroll tax, to be levied on total payroll and applying only to corporations that exceed the CEO pay ratio. It is unclear how much additional revenue this would generate.

The Affected Persons Program, originally funded in the 2023 budget, did not have its work group implemented by the OPA this year. In response, it has had its funding moved over to HSD to contract with a community-based organization to coordinate the workgroup.

SPD’s New Ruse Policy

SPD announced their new ruse policy to much fanfare this week. This policy was created in response to the infamous Proud Boy ruse during the 2020 protests, as well as another ruse by SPD in 2018 in which an officer lied to the friend of a suspect in a fender bender, saying a woman was in critical condition because of the crash. The suspect committed suicide about a month later.

The new policy outlines the circumstances in which a ruse is allowed to be conducted. They are no longer supposed to be used for the investigation of misdemeanor property crimes. Perhaps most strikingly, they are also not allowed to be broadcast over radio, social media, or any other mass media format, a rule that, had it been in place in 2020, might have prevented the Proud Boy ruse. Officers are also supposed to consult with a supervisor before instigating a ruse, although only when “reasonably practical,” which seems like a potentially large loophole.

There are also now new requirements for documenting patrol ruses, which has led to some speculation over how many ruses will actually be documented in the manner described in the policy, as well as how much extra time (and potentially overtime) this might require. The word “ruse” is required to be specifically used in these reports, which could potentially make public disclosure requests around these sorts of police actions a bit easier to implement. 

What this new policy doesn’t directly address is the lack of communication that may have led public officials such as Seattle Public Utilities’ Emergency Manager into believing and making decisions based on their belief in the Proud Boy ruse.

Black Officers Alleging Discrimination at UW Police Department

Back in 2021, five Black officers at the UW Police Department filed a claim alleging dozens of incidents of racial discrimination in their workplace. Jury selection for this trial, which involves claims of over $8 million, began last week. Apparently an outside review was done of the department in 2019, which found a “culture of fear.” And yet UW President Ana Mari Cauce expressed surprise at the lawsuit since the review didn’t mention racism as a concern. How it would have uncovered such a thing given the aforementioned culture of fear is an open question.

King County News:

Solitary Confinement for Juveniles

The King County Council is discussing a new ordinance to replace the ordinance they passed in 2017 banning solitary confinement for juveniles, with a possible vote planned for this coming Tuesday.

First, some scene setting: King County’s youth detention facility has been experiencing staffing shortages. Right now 73 detention officers are employed there, while they are funded for 91 officers. This year they have hired 20 new detention officers while 21 detention officers have left their positions, leaving the facility with a small net negative for the year in terms of staffing numbers. 

The Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention say they would like the juvenile solitary confinement ordinance changed in order to be able to provide one-on-one programming to juveniles at the facility. This would involve a change to the definition of solitary confinement.  But advocates, including ACLU Washington, the King County Department of Public Defense, and Team Child, have brought up a few concerns:

  • Due to the continued staffing shortage, advocates are worried staffing issues might become an exemption to the ban of solitary confinement for juveniles. While Councilmember Balducci’s proposed striker amendment does improve upon this, they desire to see stronger language clarifying that staffing issues won’t become an exemption to this regulation, especially in order to prevent solitary confinement being justified as needed due to a facility safety issue.
  • The ban on juvenile solitary confinement does not include any enforcement mechanism for violations. Without a means of enforcing the right to not be put into solitary confinement, the ban doesn’t necessarily protect juveniles in practice. Advocates are asking for a system that allows kids who have been illegally held in solitary confinement to be able to collect damages without having to file a lawsuit as a means of enforcement. 

If you would like to weigh in on this issue, you can email or call your King County councilmembers and/or give public comment in person or remotely at the committee meeting on Tuesday, November 7 at 9:30am.

Drugs in King County Jail

According to an indictment, a former King County Jail guard allegedly accepted bribes to bring methamphetamine and fentanyl into the King County Jail for two inmates. 

In response, Executive Constantine released the following statement: 

“The charges alleged in this indictment represent not just a breach of public safety, but a disdain for the trust placed in those we count on to serve and protect. I want to make clear – the charges against this former employee and his co-conspirators tarnish the work that our corrections officers do every day to serve their community with professionalism and the highest standards of care.

The public can count on King County to continue doing everything we can to stop fentanyl and other contraband from entering our correctional facilities.”

Once again, this calls into question the intentions behind Seattle’s drug criminalization bill passed earlier this fall, given some of the people arrested due to this bill will end up in a jail in which illegal drugs are potentially circulating.

WA State News:

Finally, a small tidbit of what is to come during the next state legislative session beginning in January 2024:

“Meanwhile, more help will be sought to fill the ranks of law enforcement agencies. The Association of Washington Cities wants the Legislature to update the local Public Safety Sales Tax to allow councils to use the funds to boost officer pay and increase behavioral health resources. It’s also asking the state to offer more classes at the Basic Law Enforcement Academy and expand regional academies.”

Recent Headlines:

The Debate over ShotSpotter in Seattle Continues, While King County Takes Up Juvenile Solitary Confinement Read More »

Mayor Harrell Has No Plan to Prevent Budget Austerity Next Year

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Guaranteed Basic Income panel:

If this week’s newsletter seems a bit lean, it is because I am spending large amounts of time preparing for Solidarity Budget’s upcoming Guaranteed Basic Income panel. And I hope you’ll consider attending!

When: Tuesday, October 10th, 6-8PM

Where: Rainier Arts Center, 3515 South Alaska St, Columbia City

Food will be served, and I’ll be giving a short presentation on Solidarity Budget and GBI. Then we’ll learn more from a truly amazing line-up of panelists, local experts with lots of knowledge and experience with GBI.

You can RSVP here. If you can’t make it in person, the recording will be available here.

Seattle Budget News:

We’re all discussing Mayor Harrell’s proposed 2024 budget. Released last week, the proposed budget stays largely true to that approved by the City Council last year, but it wouldn’t be budget season if there weren’t some interesting nuggets buried in there. 

Probably most noteworthy is the failure of this proposal to address the large revenue shortfall we’re expecting beginning in 2025. The city could easily be short $250 million in the 2025 budget, and that’s only the beginning of several years of projected shortfalls. 

In order to address this, the city has two main choices: to cut, aka adopt an austerity budget, or to pass new progressive revenue. The Mayor hasn’t proposed any new progressive revenue and says he wishes to leave that problem to next year’s Council. The problem with this approach is that any new progressive revenue passed will take some time to implement and begin to collect, which means if we wait until next fall to discuss this, it will already be too late for any measures to meaningfully impact 2025’s budget. 

And making $250 million of cuts in 2025’s budget will be a painful process that will likely result in fewer services, less money for housing in particular (as the Mayor seems likely to raid JumpStart tax revenues to staunch the bleeding), and potential layoffs for city workers. 

Worse yet, the city will have to turn around and deal with a similarly sized shortfall in the 2026 budget.

Also in this budget proposal are funds for SPD to use Shotspotter, now rebranded as SoundThink, an ineffective gunshot location technology that does nothing to prevent gun violence and disproportionately impacts poor communities of color. If this sounds familiar, it’s because we defeated a similar proposal last year, but apparently the Mayor’s Office felt ready for some Groundhog Day-type antics.

The proposed budget also includes funding for what appears to be 213 ghost cops, or positions for sworn officers within SPD that the department has no plans or ability to fill. This continued position authority, not generally given to any other department, allows them access to their own private slush fund for unfortunate ideas like Shotspotter and officer hiring bonuses that don’t appear to actually work. 

Glaringly absent from the budget is any additional funding for diversion services as was obliquely promised during the discussion about the new War on Drugs legislation passed last month.

The budget also includes increased funding for the city’s dual dispatch alternative response pilot, which I wrote about at greater length this week over at The Urbanist. 

City Council will be meeting for three issue identification sessions around the budget next week, and there will be a chance to give public comment before the first one, at 10am on Wednesday, October 11. As always, you can also email your councilmembers and let them know your budget priorities. 

Other News:

The SPD officer and SPOG VP Daniel Auderer, who was caught joking about Jaahnavi Kandula’s death, has been moved off the streets and assigned to review red-light camera footage. The CPC has called for Auderer to be put on administrative leave without pay while the OPA investigates his case.

Last week Mayor Harrell released his executive order pertaining to the new War on Drugs legislation passed last month. Notably, he defines harm as pertaining to the impact on the ability of others to use shared public space as opposed to actual physical harm of another individual, which seems to confirm this new legislation is mostly another mechanism of control and criminalization over those who are unhoused.

As Publicola reports:

“Harrell’s order is mostly suggestive rather than prescriptive. Officers who believe a person’s drug use inherently threatens those around them can decide, based on their training and “the totality of the circumstances,” to arrest a person or attempt to divert them to LEAD, the city’s primary diversion program. The number of arrests that officers will actually make is constrained by the booking capacity of the downtown jail, which is severely limited due to a shortage of guards.”

The executive order also requires outreach providers to create a “by-name list” of people significantly affected by the opioid crisis in a certain area of the city, which some advocates say is an inappropriate use of such a list.

In addition, the order minimizes the changes to the legislation made by Councilmember Nelson that would have given officers additional discretion over arrests.

Finally, the Stranger reported on the tragic story of Thomas J. Sturges. Ruled incompetent to stand trial due to mental illness, Sturges waited in the King County Jail for almost a year for the state to pick him up for competency restoration, his mother unable to afford to pay his $15,000 bail. Once a hospital “restored” him, he was returned to King County Jail in June of this year. 

The health department was prevented from meeting with him for a few months because of extreme understaffing, even though he needed to see them in order to resume taking medication for his mental illness. By August 27, he was transferred back to the hospital because he couldn’t stop vomiting and had lost almost half his body weight. At his most recent hearing “the judge noted he couldn’t appear because ‘he was severely malnourished in jail.’”

Recent Headlines:

Mayor Harrell Has No Plan to Prevent Budget Austerity Next Year Read More »

The End of the Consent Decree is Tied to the Next SPOG Contract

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Seattle News:

The push for a new war on drugs continues. Publicola reports that DESC will be running the new overdose recovery center from its Morrison hotel building on Third Avenue. King County has committed $2 million to renovating the second floor of this building for this purpose, and Seattle will spend $2 million on construction (out of the $7 million total the Mayor said he’d be using on capital projects related to the fentanyl crisis). What the remaining $5 million will be spent on is currently unclear. The slightly more than $1 million Mayor Harrell has been talking about investing every year for services would not be able to fund operations at this overdose recovery center 24-7. This response seems inadequate given King County is about to surpass 2022’s number of overdose fatalities with four months remaining in the year. 

The Public Safety and Human Services committee is scheduled to discuss and vote on the new drug war legislation at 9:30am next Tuesday 9/12, and there will be an opportunity for the public to give public comment at that time (one script is here). If the legislation passes out of committee, it could be voted on by the Full Council as soon as September 19. If, however, the legislation were to stall in committee, the upcoming budget season could potentially delay a final vote until after Thanksgiving.

Speaking of, budget season is coming up fast, with Mayor Harrell’s proposed budget expected on Tuesday, September 26. Solidarity Budget is having their launch event this Saturday from 1-3pm at Rainier Playfield in Columbia City, where attendees can enjoy food, music, a photo booth and more while learning about the city’s budget process and Solidarity Budget’s demands for nine guarantees. For those who wish to volunteer with Solidarity Budget, there will be a volunteer orientation on Thursday, September 14 from 6-7:30pm over Zoom. 

One of the hot topics we can expect to be discussed during budget season is the upcoming gap in Seattle’s General Fund and how and whether the city should pursue additional progressive revenue to fill this gap. Real Change offers a few different opinions on this issue here and here.

A hearing for the consent decree was held on Wednesday, with a written ruling released on Thursday morning. Judge Robart opted to terminate many sections of the consent decree, but not all; he wrote: “As a result, the court finds and concludes that the City and SPD must meet additional milestones to demonstrate sustained full and effective compliance with the use of force and accountability requirements of the Consent Decree and to achieve final resolution of this matter.” He is specifically concerned with use of force as it pertains to crowd control after SPD’s actions in 2020. 

The ruling goes on to lay out a timeline of various tasks that must be completed in order for the consent decree to be fully and finally terminated. Several of the deadlines fall in December 2023, with additional deadlines in the first few months of next year, culminating in a report from the Monitor due March 29, 2024. 

Pivotally, it sounds as though Judge Robart’s willingness to end the consent decree rests on the contents of the next SPOG contract, how it deals with issues of accountability, and specifically whether it enables the 2017 Accountability Ordinance to finally go into full effect. This is an interesting twist, as both Mayor Harrell and SPD are highly incentivized to close out the consent decree, so this warning on the Judge’s part could have ramifications at the bargaining table. In his comments on Wednesday, Judge Robart mentioned that he doesn’t believe issues of discipline and accountability should be a part of bargaining in the first place.

Judge Robart also took another shot at the defund movement, blaming it for Seattle’s struggles to recruit more police, even though police departments across the country are having the same problem. As The Stranger’s Ashley Nerbovig reports, “Defend the Defund organizer BJ Last called it “extremely disingenuous” for the judge to blame the defund movement as the reason why people don’t want to join a profession that increases a person’s likelihood of suicide by 54%.” She also mentioned the Judge’s comments that cop TV shows are “the worst enemy of good police work.” 

For more analysis on how the consent decree has failed in its promise, you can read my op-ed at The Urbanist, where I discuss the high cost of the decree, its removal of community agency, and its failure to address biased policing, including a reminder of Dr. Sherry Towers’s analysis that 1 out of 10 killings in Seattle are committed by a police officer.

King County and Washington State News:

The Seattle Times published a positive piece on the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight (OLEO)’s director Tamar Abouzeid, calling him “an unapologetic reformer who thinks America’s criminal legal system is racist and broken, and needs to be radically changed or scrapped.” OLEO recently released its 2022 annual report. There was a 22% drop in complaints for the year, with the bulk of the drop being for complaints initiated by Sheriff’s Office employees. The number of investigations OLEO declined to certify more than doubled from 2021 to 13% (OLEO certified 101 investigations and declined to certify 15). Deputies with three or more allegations account for approximately 5% of the sworn force, but approximately 40% of all allegations. The number of allegations of excessive force rose from 58 in 2021 to 73 in 2022, but none of the allegations that were closed were sustained.

Meanwhile, over at King County’s Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (DAJD), the staffing issues are so bad that sometimes corrections officers must work up to 16 hours a day for multiple days, with one officer registering 1000 hours of overtime last year. 60% of officers have doctor’s notes that protect them from having to work overtime, up from 15% in 2018. As Ashley Nerbovig reports, “The jails have what amounts to a 29% job vacancy rate due to the number of actual open positions combined with the number of officers restricted to “light duty.””

In state redistricting news, a federal judge ruled Washington must redraw one of its legislative districts in Yakima Valley and set a progress report deadline of January 8. This deadline means the state legislature would have to convene a special session in order to vote to reconvene the state redistricting commission; if they do not, the court can decide on a new legislative map instead. At present it is not even certain whether the legislature would have the necessary votes to reconvene the commission, even if they were to hold a special session. Therefore, a court decision on a new map seems likely.

Recent Headlines:

 

The End of the Consent Decree is Tied to the Next SPOG Contract Read More »

Seattle’s Alternate Response Pilot a Far Cry from 2020 Demands

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Seattle News:

Yours truly was quoted in a recent Urbanist article about the recent shakeup at the Mayor’s Office, which reports that Tim Burgess will be promoted to Deputy Mayor in Monisha Harrell’s wake. Former OPA Director Andrew Myerberg will also be receiving a promotion to Chief Innovation Officer, which will put him on the executive team. It appears that current Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell will be staying until the end of the summer.

Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell appeared at Tuesday’s Public Safety and Human Services Department committee meeting to deliver a presentation on the City’s much-delayed dual dispatch response. The City is hiring six mental health professionals and one clinical supervisor; the mental health professionals will be dispatched in three teams of two, with two teams working at a time. When the new program launches, theoretically in October, it will respond to calls such as welfare checks and person down calls, and it will not provide 24/7 response. Monisha Harrell spoke to the potential of alternate response programs to act as preventative measures that address situations before they become emergencies. 

However, this new program ultimately won’t deliver on the hope to have a new non-police emergency response in Seattle, which has been consistently blocked for the last three years by SPD, SPOG, and former Mayor Durkan. As Ashley Nerbovig at the Stranger succinctly summarizes: “A lot of questions about the direction of the program remain, and part of the pilot program includes collecting data to learn what types of calls don’t require police. That data basically already exists, though. The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform’s 2021 analysis showed that 80% of SPD calls for service involved non-criminal matters. The report also found that about half of all calls did not require a sworn response.” 

She reports that the main difference between this pilot program and the already existing Crisis Response Team is that with the new program, police will be allowed to leave the scene if they decide their presence is unnecessary. This might reflect a recent change in the pilot design as in the past, the dual dispatch plan has been described as having police staged nearby in case backup was needed, which is a key difference as police being directly on the scene can have an escalating effect. In any case, it seems clear the new pilot deviates from the model proven by the successful CAHOOTS and STAR programs.

Meanwhile, the overdue white paper was not mentioned.

On Tuesday the Mayor held a press conference to discuss his downtown activation plan, but he was interrupted by a small group of protesters demanding a ban on sweeps during the winter and extreme weather events. According to The Stranger, he got “incredibly flustered” and stated that the press conference “had them outnumbered at least.” Expect local groups to take notice of the Mayor’s discomfort with protestors and increase their direct actions in response.

Publicola reported on the substance of the proposal, which is mostly a repeat of what the Mayor has announced before: “And, of course, it assumes a heavier police presence downtown—a mostly unspoken, but bedrock, element of the proposal. “Make Downtown Safe and Welcoming” is actually number one on the plan’s list of seven priorities, starting with arrests of people “distributing and selling illegal drugs” (and, presumably, using them—Harrell mentioned that a bill criminalizing drug possession and public use will likely pass in July).”

Mayor Harrell’s office has released a memo on OPA findings about former SPD Chief Carmen Best. Because Best refused to participate in the investigation, the OPA said they were unable to find sufficient evidence to determine whether several of her statements in the summer of 2020 were “knowingly false.” The Mayor’s memo acts as a toothless rebuke, as Best will suffer no repercussions for her actions, even as the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports that “Best’s use of information and inaccurate statements fits into a pattern of disinformation and “improper ruses” used by SPD during the protests.”

SPD Officer Constantin, who was fired for his social media posts, had his appeal dismissed after he failed to appear. Former SPD Officer Adley Shepherd’s appeal (he was suing the City after being fired for punching a woman he’d arrested and handcuffed) has also been dismissed.

County, State, and National News:

The King County Sheriff’s Office has been ordered to reinstate a deputy they fired in 2021 for killing an unarmed man who was wanted for the theft of a vehicle and a poodle. (The poodle survived.) King County later settled with the man’s family for $2.5 million. Deputy George Alvarez, who already had five shootings under his belt at the time of the incident, will return to the department, although he will not be reinstated to the SWAT team. As Publicola reports, Tamer Abouzeid, the director of OLEO, hopes the outcome of this case could lead to changing the burden of proof of administrative investigations to a preponderance of the evidence, which is a lower burden of proof than the current standard used of clear and convincing standard. 

In the last three or so months, nearly 400 inmates in the King County Jail have been moved to the Maleng Regional Justice Center (MRJC) in Kent. MRJC  now houses about 40% of the average daily jail population, up from around 25%, while the population of the downtown jail has been decreased by about a third. Right now, SCORE is housing 30 jail residents for King County. 

Meanwhile, Larch Corrections Center in Clark County will be closing this fall. It is one of twelve prisons in Washington State. Apparently the Department of Corrections is also finally developing a plan to reduce the use of solitary confinement in Washington prisons, after strong grassroots advocacy for legislation that would ban such use entirely, given that solitary confinement that lasts more than 15 days is recognized as torture by the United Nations and various human rights organizations.

Scott Greenstone at KNKX recently published an excellent piece outlining the lack of drug treatment facilities in Washington state and consequences of the new Blake fix drug law. While legislators and the governor insist the new law is meant to help people get more treatment more than it is to increase incarceration rates, there is a serious lack of treatment facilities in the state, and the existing facilities often have wait times of several months. We don’t know the full extent of the problem because “it’s unclear how many beds are actually sitting empty right now in Washington: The system is so complicated and poorly tracked, neither the governor’s office, nor the Washington Department of Health, nor the Healthcare Authority could provide those numbers.” And the urgency of the problem is increasing: while the number of people getting treated for substance use disorder has stayed relatively flat, the number of overdoses has skyrocketed in recent years.

The article also features noted addiction expert Caleb Banta-Green, who spoke to his feelings of discouragement after the new law was passed, as well as his worries that it will “make it easier to shut down clean-needle exchanges, and force people into an ineffective treatment system.”

Nationwide, we’re seeing a drop in the murder rate, as reported by Radley Balko: “If trends continue, 2023 will see the largest percentage drop in murders in U.S. history. The drop will be driven primarily by large declines in big cities. This would seem to undermine the argument that the 2-year rise in homicides during the pandemic was driven by criminal justice reform, George Soros’s favored prosecutors, or policing shortages.”

Housekeeping:

I’ve received a few pledge requests through Substack, so I just wanted to give you a reminder that if you want to support Notes from the Emerald City via subscription, you can do so through my Patreon.

Recent Headlines:

Seattle’s Alternate Response Pilot a Far Cry from 2020 Demands Read More »

New Drug Law Negotiations Still Messy

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Once again, we have a more bare bones edition this week while my hand takes its time healing and I am still unable to type normally. These headlines should give you a sense of what’s been going on this week.

Seattle:

As a Firefighter, I Oppose Criminalizing “Interference” with Seattle Fire Department Personnel

Seattle City Council will vote on this legislation on Tuesday. For more information, read this.

Seattle to settle lawsuit by employees who blew whistle on mayor’s missing texts

Seattle Cop Mocks Trans People, Blames Jan. 6 Riots on Pelosi; County Council Plays It Safe by Proposing Flat Levy Renewal

Seattle-Based Seabold Group Investigated Fmr. SPD Chief Best — Unclear Where Investigation Stands

Maren Costa Builds Council Run on West Seattle Roots and Climate Organizing

King County:

King County councilmembers seek evaluation of jail population reduction programs

King County Council approves sending renewal of Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services levy to ballots

They decided not to ask for an increase in the tax rate.

Washington State:

Progressive Democrats Want to Compromise on a New Drug Law

Inslee calls WA Legislature special session to address drug possession

Criminalizing Drug Possession Is a Mistake We Must Not Make Again

New Police Pursuit Law Requires Less Evidence to Give Chase

Here’s What Happened in Olympia

Heroes and Zeroes of the 2023 Washington State Legislature

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says he won’t run for a fourth term

Slog AM: Ferguson Exploring Run for Governor, Durkan’s Whistleblower Settlement, Biden Agrees to Debt Ceiling Talks

Sen. Patty Kuderer Announces Run for Insurance Commissioner

Resources & Commentary

Our Media Is Fueling Vigilantism Against Homeless People

Three Things To Read This Week: Baltimore’s “Community Violence Intervention Program Is Helping To Drop The Homicide Rate.”

 

 

New Drug Law Negotiations Still Messy Read More »

Disproportionate Incarceration is Alive and Well in King County

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Seattle News

Judge Robart has set the next consent decree hearing for Tuesday, May 30 at 1pm. Buckle your seatbelts because this one should be interesting!

Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Services committee heard a presentation from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) on Tuesday regarding the work that office will be doing should the new consent decree agreement be approved. The Monitor’s oversight work will be transitioning over to OIG, which will also review other parts of SPD beyond those mandated by the consent decree. OIG will be producing a use of force assessment to be delivered to the court by the end of July, which will include force used in crisis incidents, use of less lethal devices, and force used during crowd management, using data from 2021 and 2022. Note this data is provided directly by SPD. They are also hoping to analyze data on traffic stops that aren’t Terry stops, the data of which has been fairly inaccessible up until now. 

OIG’s fourth and final Sentinel Event Review (SER) covering the 2020 protests should be released in the next few weeks. In total, OIG has made more than 400 recommendations to SPD based on these SER reports, the implementation of which they’ll be monitoring. They are also considering utilizing the SER model in the future for officer-involved shootings in crisis incidents. In addition, they will be investigating whether SPD has the appropriate systems to comply with the new state decertification law. 

OIG has made a number of comments designated as “matters of consideration,” which don’t go as far as recommendations. CM Herbold asked about the matter of consideration pertaining to the fact that historically SPD police chiefs have chosen to apply the lower end of recommended discipline when there has been misconduct; Director Judge replied this was a good time to refresh that data and see what Chief Diaz’s trend has been in this regard. OIG is looking at several other issues, including limiting deception during interrogation and reviewing SPD’s “ruse” policy; work around traffic stops with the Vera Institute; case closure rates in the investigative bureau; and a report to be released in Q2 analyzing SPD’s compliance with the city’s youth rights ordinance that requires youth be allowed to consult with counsel before waiving their rights. 

OIG has a new Deputy Director, Bessie Marie Scott, who worked previously for the Public Defender Association and as the Interim Director of the CPC. OIG is currently hiring for three additional full-time positions, including a team lead and two policy analysts. 

This week the Seattle City Council also received an economic forecast report, including a revenue forecast, which shows the core general fund revenue sources are not expected to keep up with inflation. Actual revenues from the Jumpstart tax fell from $293m in 2021 to $253m in 2022, and are expected to be $263m this year, revised significantly downwards from the previous estimate of $294m. The REET revenue forecast for 2023 has also significantly dropped; in November, these estimates were revised from $95m to $68m, and that number has dropped even further to $55m. The REET revenues aren’t expected to recover fully until 2027.

All of this is to say that the Council will be looking at an even smaller pot of money than expected during this fall’s budget season, and the results of the progressive revenue task force have become even more critical.

King County News

This week seems like a good opportunity to dig into the recent booking data from the King County Jail. In the last two weeks, there have been 148 total bookings; 38.4% of bookings have been misdemeanors, of which 50.2% were booked by SPD. If you remember, the King County Council mentioned Executive Constantine can enact booking restrictions for misdemeanors. That being said, 88.6% of the total jail population were booked for a felony. And 21% of the population have been imprisoned in the King County Jail for more than a year.

If you look at how race correlates with charge type, 34.2% of those misdemeanor bookings were Black people, whereas for felony bookings, 27.7% were Black people. Looking at the total jail population, Black people constitute 38.6%. For comparison, Black people make up around 7% of both Seattle and King County’s populations. As we learned in the last few King County Council meetings, many of those in the King County Jail are there because they cannot afford to pay bail or are waiting for competency restoration. 

Thus we can see how disproportionate incarceration is alive and well in King County, and how systemic racism, the racial wealth gap, and underinvestment in marginalized communities continue to cause harm today.

charts showing percentages discussed in text
KCJ bookings showing misdemeanors 4/12/2023
Chart showing percentages discussed in text
KCJ bookings showing felonies 4/12/2023
Chart showing percentages discussed in text
KCJ Population by Charge Type, Race, and Length of Stay

WA State News

While this year’s legislative session has been very productive in some ways, it’s been a disappointing year for police accountability. None of the major bills designed to improve police accountability made it through the legislative process, and SB 5352, the bill that rolls back reforms to lethal police pursuits made in 2021, was passed by the House this week in a vote of 57-40, in what Representative Julia Reed called “the most bizarre debate experience I’ve had to date.”

On Tuesday night the House voted on the Blake bill, SB 5336, which passed 54 to 41. The Senate version set drug possession as a gross misdemeanor, and the new House version changes that to a simple misdemeanor. The potential jail time for a gross misdemeanor in Washington State maxes out at 364 days, whereas for a simple misdemeanor it maxes out at 90 days. You can read more about this bill here, which will now move on to negotiations between the House and the Senate.

Two gun control bills have also now passed both houses. The one getting the most press is the assault weapon ban, which now goes to the governor for a signature and is expected to be the subject of a future lawsuit. The other bill would require potential gun owners to get trained, screened, and wait for 10 days before being able to purchase a weapon. 

Meanwhile, Austin Fields criticized the recent capital gains tax ruling by the Washington Supreme Court for falling short of making a case for a more equitable economy:

“The Court’s cautious path was predictable—and widely predicted—but that doesn’t excuse the justices’ failure to endorse a more democratic, equitable tax system. Of course, the state desperately needs the estimated $500 million from the tax to fund early childhood programs. But the Court could have gone further and acknowledged the State Legislature’s existing authority to directly tax the incomes of Washington’s mega-rich to pay for thousands of affordable homes, a health care system capable of treating everyone, and everything else a truly progressive state would guarantee its residents.”

Recent Headlines

Disproportionate Incarceration is Alive and Well in King County Read More »